


Hold a Fire Against a Hemisphere of Shadows

by draw_a_circle_thats_the_foxhole



Series: Sure of the Sea [5]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Space Race, characters are scared shitless in this but theres no gore or death, warning: existential terror of space, warning: mild brotherly feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 11:03:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21298397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draw_a_circle_thats_the_foxhole/pseuds/draw_a_circle_thats_the_foxhole
Summary: As Alfred floats through the darkness, his youngest brother lights the way.Space race familial feels. Oneshot. Complete.
Series: Sure of the Sea [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957963
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53





	Hold a Fire Against a Hemisphere of Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of working in the same universe as Sure of the Sea and other fics where Arthur has four children. Alfred, his estranged firstborn. Matt unwillingly brought into the fold. Jack (Australia) and Zee, (New Zealand) are the youngest, completely raised separately from Alfred until forced to rely on him in the second world war.

_ when I beheld a fire_  
_win out against a hemisphere of shadows._

—Dante

* * *

_If I could hold fire against_  
_a hemisphere of shadows, hold it_  
_close, not so that damage_  
_finds my hands, but so fire scatters_  
_galvanizing strands, my pupils_  
_responsive to the flames’ unbridled_  
_tutelage as they tell me_  
_nothing but these little jumps_  
_out of your definitions, small_  
_or large or leaping, sinking, slumped..._  
_If I could hold fire against_  
_that latticework of shadows, standing_  
_close to flames pivoting without_  
_being singed or riveted or convinced_  
_it is the only spirit, like a god,_  
_making me something nailed to the wood_  
_then keep my head, then coolly draw_  
_some backbone from that dazzle._  
—Lisa Williams 

* * *

* * *

Alfred floats through the darkness of space, only the thin lights of the instruments lighting the cramped space of the cockpit. The fluorescent strip above had gone out hours before. Alfred adjusted his helmet. He had strapped himself in tight. He had oxygen but what he was strapped too was tumbling blindly through space. The tin can craft was held only in place by the primaeval forces of nature--- things that had been born before life, really. Physics was the oldest truth there was, and Alfred understood it better than most. But not a number in all the equation on all the chalkboards of MIT, Harvard, or NASA prepared him for the existential terror of being flung through the darkness.  
  
The craft, shaped like Dad's favourite cranberry chicken tea sandwiches being presented to the queen with their crusts cut off. Whole trays of them had never filled Alfred up, and he'd never quite understood their point. Maybe the geriatric didn't have much of an appetite anymore. But, seeing as it might be the old man to pluck him out of the ocean when this thing dropped back to earth, he didn't want to ask. But triangles stacked against each other and rounded off hadn't left him much legroom. It had, however, left him with a full, flat window. Stars, earth, stars, earth. Day and night passed in minutes instead of hours as he was flung around and around and around. He saw the light of dawn, the dazzle of daylight. The passing of the sun behind him let him shiver. Now it was night again. He'd been out of radio contact for three cycles now. Maybe three hours of reasonable time.  
  
The star's smeared into faint lines on the night side of the sky, but then he caught sight of the sea again. The Indian Ocean was a vastness even he, the third-largest nation on the planet could hardly comprehend. The blue-black ink ocean was as terrifying as space. Maybe just as deep as he was high. He thought of his father again. If he could master the sea long enough for Alfred to inherit his power there, then Alfred could master the sky. He had mastered the air. Now there was only space left. But the sky and sea were finite things. They were only as big as the planet could be. But space? Space was as endless as the human imagination.  
  
The cockpit swung violently and didn't obey the switch he flipped and the controls he pulled up. He was drowning in the darkness as surely as he could drown in water except there would be no shore if he were lost up here. Breathing in hitches, trying to gain control of the sweat he couldn't swipe at threatening to push down his hood under the helmet. He popped his protein pills, trying to calm himself down. They'd make him sleepy, but they'd keep his heartrate human. He failed, and his breath came faster, adrenaline shooting through his hands. He was going to die up here. Even he wouldn't survive this. They had named it Atlas--- he had been strong enough to hold up the world during the war but now? Oh fuck.  
  
Then a voice from the void,  
  
"Friendship 7, this is Julius Kilo. Do you copy? Over."  
  
Alfred gulped in the air so hard he nearly vomited out his next sentence.  
  
"This is Friendship 7. Over."  
  
There was a crackle. "Zee! I've got him! He sounds like he's about to have himself a technicolour yawn, but I reckon--"  
  
"Jack?" Alfred almost screamed into the mouthpiece.  
  
"Who else ya mad bastard? Zee's here too."  
  
“Oh my God is it really you?”  
  
"Naw, mate, it's the Archbishop of fucken Canterbury!" Jack laughed and then was joined by Zee's clear voice, appearing next to Jack's like bright, clear piano tunes.  
  
"We're here," She said, and the realisation he wasn't entirely as alone as before hit him in the sternum like a blow. A hard enough sort of hit that tears formed behind his eyelids and he had to close his eyes again.  
  
He must have made some sort of sound because Jack was babbling again.  
  
"You gonna make it mate?"  
  
"Fuck," was all Alfred could manage.  
  
"What do you reckon they call it when people let a few roo's loose in the top paddock up there? Can't exactly say 'gone troppo' for---"  
  
"Would you shut up?" He heard a knock of knuckle on skull and Jack grunting in pain. "Alfred, if you're still there and the tracking is right, you should---"  
  
"Have a fucken squizz now!" Jack practically yelled into his radio.  
  
Alfred forced his eyes open. And there was light. An aurora of it, looking like the tracing a sprawling city. It was golden like the dawn, as blinding as Edison's bulb had been that first time. As welcome and warm as a hearth in winter or a lantern in the night. He choked out something like thank you and whatever Jack said in return hardly sounded like English, but he could hear the grin. The radio became cracklier as he passed over the glow. The fucking tin can, far above the earth was warm again. His heart slowed down.  
  
Space was darkness and loneliness and cold and achievement and competition. But now, from this high, at this view, the entirety of the planet was dwarfed. His own massive country was... nothing. But the earth was home. He had a family. A father and siblings. He thought of Father in the early day's of Boston, pouring out cider in mugs that flickered gold in the torchlight. Father had kept watch over his firstborn playing blind man's bluff in the fading light of day. He saw Matt as he had looked during Alfred's Civil War in the lamplight, sitting at the foot of his bed, guarding him against the surgeon's bone saw. There was Zee, bringing fire from water in the swamps of the Pacific, keeping him warm and safe as temperatures plunged from scorching to shivering with the malaria.  
  
Now there was Jack's light, stretching across the night, hundreds of thousands of light bulbs. In lamps and lanterns and living rooms. The entire coastline glowing beneath him. Pushing life up through the dead freeze of space too him. Since Trinity, he has bee Atlas. His hands holding up the heavens, holding nuclear power in his palms. But he'd never been alone. He grinned stupidly as the protein pills kicked in and he engaged autopilot. Wedging his head left, he let his cheek roll into the glass of his helmet as sleep began to take him. He closed his eyes, and the last thing he knew was Zee's voice, her voice was as warm as Jack's city light.  
  
"See you when you come home, Alfred,"

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr here:
> 
> https://draw-a-circle-thats-the-foxhole.tumblr.com/
> 
> I post history and Hetalia and aesthetics.
> 
> Kudos, comments and critiques are life. Thank you for reading!


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